First and foremost I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Ingo Morano, who gave me the opportunity to carry out this project, and always supported and encouraged through the time course of my Ph.D. His enormous knowledge, enthusiasm and good mood were my stimulating initiative.

I would also like to thank Dr. Hannelore Haase, Dr. Peter Karczewski and Dr. Michael Bader for their sincere help, advice and valuable discussions during the course of this work. I would like to express my intense and deep gratitude for Dr. Ursula Ganten for the production of the transgenic rats involved in the project.

Special thanks go to Dr. Monika Kott for the immunofluorescence microscopy, Wolfgang-Peter Schlegel for the Langendorff-perfusion and Steffen Lutter for his helpful technical assistance.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all my lab-mates who shared my daily life, for their help, support and making me feel at home. Special thanks for Christiane Woischwill, Petra Pierschalek, and Daria Petzhold for being very special friends.

I am thankful for the collaboration with the Institute of Human Genetics at the Charité, and I really appreciate the extensive effort made by Jadranka Segaric in performing the whole proteome analysis by 2DE.